The U.S. Navy says 'welcome aboard' to new startup partnerships

This week on StrictlyVC Download, Alex and Connie are joined by Justin Fanelli, the Acting Chief Technology Officer for the US Navy and Technical Director of Program Executive Office Digital, where he oversees billions of dollars in IT infrastructure and cybersecurity initiatives. He's also a venture partner at NextGen Venture Partners and serves as a senior fellow for the Open Forum for AI. In this episode, they discuss the Navy's innovation adoption kit designed to bridge the "valley of death" between commercial technology and military implementation, the partnership with Defense Innovation Unit to streamline startup onboarding, and how the Navy is measuring success through new outcome-driven metrics that prioritize sailor time saved and operational resilience over traditional activity-based measurements. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction and background 03:19 - Innovation adoption kit and valley of death solutions 05:43 - Partnership with Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) 08:27 - Onboarding non-traditional vendors and startups 13:22 - Current pain points and AI adoption challenges 15:37 - Technology modernization and team structure 17:39 - Measuring effectiveness with world class alignment metrics 21:23 - Common failure points in technology adoption 22:09 - America first policies and supply chain resilience Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices